


something happens (when i hold him)

by orphan_account



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Post-Canon, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, adams touchy ronan is scared, thats it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 15:38:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13883895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I’m bad at this whole thing, so—just don’t try to touch me, okay? That’s my one page terms and conditions.”“Yeah, fine,” Adam says neutrally. As if it’s actually fine. “Accepted. And if I accidentally do?”“Don’t.”Or, Adam and Ronan learn to sleep together. (Like, actually sleep together.)





	something happens (when i hold him)

**Author's Note:**

> i just finished the raven cycle in three days and i needed to cope 
> 
> the title here is from a great big world's hold each other pls listen its a bop!!! i hope u enjoy!!!

Okay. So maybe Ronan's told him his—thing.    
  
That's the smallest possible word for it because that's all Adam's trying to let it be: a  _ thing _ , something fixable, something that he can mend with enough sweat and enough double sided sticky tape. Something he’s very well aware is a byproduct of what happened with Ronan’s mom, probably, which is a fact he’s been pushing to the back of his mind for as long as they’ve been doing this.    
  
Whatever  _ this  _ is, at least.    
  
(At the moment, there’s a lot of uncertainties in Adam’s life.)    
  
His thing—in simple terms, yet again, so that it may not be as uncertain—is this: Ronan doesn’t like to be touched in his sleep.    
  
That’s it.    
  
He’d laid it out for Adam when they’d been sitting at the dinner table the other day, and Ronan had brewed up something terrible and promised to order takeout when Blue and Gansey and Henry finally stopped delaying their visit and he’d intertwined Adam’s fingers with his own as if this would soften the blow. “It’s not you,” he’d said indifferently. Picking at his... lasagna, maybe. “Not me, either. It’s whatever the fuck had been going on before us.”    
  
“Before us, like before we met?”    
  
“No,” Ronan said, then winced. He lifted their hands up, then thudded them down quickly. “Us like this.”    
  
“Boyfriends us.”    
  
“Sure, get all technical on me, Parrish,” he muttered. “It’s not a big deal—not like you live here. And there’s a million fucking beds in this house, we don’t have to share one.”    
  
It didn’t matter that Adam sort of wanted to, because it was different when he could feel Ronan against his chest, know they were both sharing a steady heartbeat, something they took for granted before, well—    
  
Well.    
  
It didn’t matter because he could understand. There were some things, Adam thought, that didn’t have to be said. Like how he couldn’t stand winterberry aftershave because it used to punch him in the teeth. He didn’t have the right to ask why, so it turned into another whatever.    
  
Then the rest of them came to the Barns again and suddenly there was another uncertainty.    
  
Gansey wasn’t so much a ghost as a host for a spirit in revolt: his eyes had blossomed into something fierce behind permanent wire-frames and sometimes he kissed Blue just to make sure he still could, and he and Henry had a weird handshake that involved having to roll up their pants because they absolutely had to clap their bare legs together.    
  
“I still think that seems unnecessary,” Blue sighed, which she’d probably been doing an awful lot of. In an entirely Blue move involving no context and no regret, she’d gotten the ends of her hair dyed bright red. Henry said this was an excuse for her to chop it all off later.    
  
“You always say that,” Gansey said, “but never do anything to stop us.”    
  
“Because we’re the fucking boys,” Henry said seriously, fist bumping Gansey, and Blue looked over at Adam, visibly jumping over some invisible boundary to get to him. Adam watched Ronan easily melt into their conversation, then looked away.     
  
“How have you been, then, Adam?” She asked, and it was easy to be annoyed at how much you liked her when she implemented your name into a conversation. “We didn’t get to talk that much the last time we Skypered—“    
  
“Skyped,” Adam corrected, and grinned. “I mean, for good reason. First time Gansey’s found anything of actual importance.”    
  
“Embarrassing to admit, yeah,” she said. Adam’s still not really sure what they’re doing, but it does involve searching for artifacts without them being related to a dead Welsh king. “Whatever. How’s school? Work?”    
  
“Same old, mother,” he said. “Acceptance letters arrived, which you guys know about.” (That was the screaming a few Skype calls ago, and the calling to 300 Fox Way by Blue to force Maura to come over and send kisses.) “Ronan’s just glad I’m staying driving distance.”    
  
Of course she noticed how his voice caught on Ronan—the same way it catches on a cough. “Yeah? Anything there?”    
  
“I mean...” and he wasn’t sure if this was conversational territory, looking at Ronan in all his head-rubbing, knee-kicking glory and still not being able to figure out whose secret this was to tell. “Everything’s... great. Better than I expected. I mean, there are expected roadblocks, but.”    
  
“But,” Blue said persistently. She knew exactly what she was doing and she did it proudly.    
  
Adam sighed. “It’s small. Doesn’t even fucking matter, but—when we’re asleep, when I’m here on the weekends, he makes me sleep in a separate bed.”    
  
“Oh.”    
  
Yep. He cringed to himself, knowing how pathetic he—they—must have looked, still having not figured out how to sleep together. In a bed. The earliest part of a relationship. But Blue didn’t look judgmental, so he pushed on.    
  
“He doesn’t like to be touched when he’s asleep. It’s really not my business, but— _ that doesn’t mean I don’t fucking want to because I’m a sap okay _ .”    
  
He said the last part in one breath, prematurely startling Blue. “Right, okay,” she said cautiously. “I mean, any reason behind it?”    
  
He shrugged. “None that he’s told me. I thought it may interfere with his dreaming but it’s not like he actively tries to do it every night.”    
  
“I’m getting more drinks,” Ronan said loudly, standing up. Adam had started and almost thought he’d heard them, but Ronan didn’t make any sort of sign that he did.    
  
(This was, of course, stereotypically Ronan, but Adam let himself believe.)    
  
“Ladies, you staying boring? Typical. And our strongest for sergeant Sargent,” he said as Blue punched his leg as he walked past. Expecting he’d gone off, Adam attempted to continue the conversation, but not before a weight pulled at his shoulders. “Anything for the pretty boy who stole the only comfortable fucking loveseat?”    
  
“You’re already getting him a beer,” Adam said, knocking his head back so Ronan’s smirk was upside-down. “And you just called him boring. I’ll have a beer too, though.”    
  
Ronan kissed him upside-down, soft and quick, and went to the kitchen. In some strange paranoia Adam had looked around to see who was glaring at them, but saw the same normality: Henry and Gansey’s bickering over who the pretty boy really was, and Blue smiling at him. That smile that lead people into thinking she was psychic.    
  
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “You know that, right? You just have to figure this one out.”   
  
“Don’t know if I can.”    
  
“We’re made to solve problems,” she said. “Look where we were.”    
  
He supposed she’d been right.    
  
(And she still is—now it‘s just a matter of making sure Ronan Lynch can still look him in the eyes.)    
  
——    
  
It’s funny, not convenient, that he and Ronan have to share a bed.    
  
You wouldn’t think there’d be a problem otherwise. He’s sure Gansey and Blue have shared a bed before—but they’re Gansey and Blue, they’ve had their own unconquerable monsters from the start. In comparison to—what, Blue’s curse?—this is tame, really.    
  
But he shouldn’t demean the situation. Ronan’s hurt. It is not his fault but it could very well become so.    
  
“Listen,” Ronan says. He’s in the corridor just having finished brushing his teeth, and Adam is responding to Gansey’s good night text, one sent out of sheer laziness even though he’s three rooms away. He’s gorgeous, given the lighting. “I’m bad at this whole thing, so—just don’t try to touch me, okay? That’s my one page terms and conditions.”    
  
“Yeah, fine,” Adam says neutrally. As if it’s actually fine. “Accepted. And if I accidentally do?”   
  
“Don’t.”    
  
“Ronan—“    
  
“Don’t,” he repeats, in a softer tone. “It doesn’t matter. We all have fucking—things. We all make sacrifices. Compromises.”    
  
A beat. Second of silence. “Okay,” Adam says, as if he’d taken the time to mull it over. “Done.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“C’mon, man, come sleep.”    
  
Relief causes Ronan’s shoulders to sag, and he nods, jumping into the spot that Adam had scooted away from. He pulls forward his earbuds and looks at Adam. “Even if my music blasts, I’m pretty sure you don’t mind. If you do, go share a bed with fucking Henry.”    
  
It’s unexpected, and Adam snorts. “I’m good,” he says. “What else do you prefer not to do in beds?”    
  
In the middle of choosing his music, Ronan’s face splits and he turns away from Adam, keeping him from looking at that smile. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he says, in the most lovable tone you could address a fucking idiot in. “Come here.”    
  
“Wh—“ and Ronan kisses him, fiercer than before, like he’s reminding Adam that there’s still this, just not something else. He touches the back of Ronan’s neck and knows he can’t feel his tattoo, but pretends he can anyway. He opens his mouth and tastes sweetness and pretends for a little that when they’re done, he can sleep on Ronan’s chest.    
  
——    
  
Carefully, experimentally, Adam stretches his arm out in the middle of the night.    
  
Ronan immediately bats it away. He groans, pushing up on one arm. “You’ve gotta be joking,” he says indignantly. “‘I’ve been watching you sleep for, like, an hour. It’s not like you can feel touch asleep!”    
  
“I’m clever,” Ronan drawls. “Why were you looking at me? So you could fucking coddle me to death while I sleep?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Ronan shakes his head, flopping back down on his back. He pushes his earbuds away to his thigh, still blasting music. He’s everyone but Ronan in the middle of the night—Ronan divided, Ronan watered down. “Why do you sound like that?”    
  
“‘Scuse me?”    
  
“Yeah, like that,” Ronan confirms. Adam tilts his head back onto his pillow, blushing. He means that Adam hasn’t pronounced his ‘for’ fully, or his ‘I’ve’, or his ‘it’s’. “I just—my accent. I forget when I’m comfortable and drowsy, sorry.”    
  
“You hid it again, asshole,” Ronan says. “Don’t. I like it.”    
  
“What?”    
  
“I like it,” Ronan repeats, almost daringly as he forces eye contact. Yeah, Adam can technically make out with him if he wants to now, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to edge away from the fucking eye contact. “Makes you human.”    
  
“Still not sure on that front.”    
  
Ronan laughs a little. “Good night.”    
  
“Oh, c’mon, Lynch,” Adam says, a little annoyed now. He grabs Ronan’s arm and he sits up, tugging it away so he can cross his arms. “There’s no fucking ‘c’mon’, Adam. I don’t want to talk about this. It’s not your problem to be concerned about.”    
  
“I’m your—“ but then he thinks about how much Ronan hates that word and stops. “I want to help you. Like you’ve helped me.”    
  
He laughs bitterly. “Always aim for the jugular, don’t you? I don’t want your pity.”    
  
“Took the words out of my mouth.”    
  
“Fuck off, Parrish,” Ronan says, as if this will convince Adam to fuck off. He slides forward and takes one of Ronan’s hands, opening it up from how it’s clenched in a fist, like some strange flower of war. He massages his fingers, pooling red into where it had been white.   
  
“I’m not going to fight you,” Adam only says.    
  
“ _ I’m _ going to fight you,” Ronan responds, but it’s weak and there’s no malice behind it. “I could beat the shit out of you.”    
  
“I know,” Adam says, and kisses his hand. Then him. “You don’t have to tell me now, but I do want a promise that you’ll tell me later.”    
  
Silence.    
  
“I’ve seen in your head.”   
  
“Pa—Adam,  _ Adam _ , you...” and he trails off, like there’s nothing to say when Adam knows there’s an entire paragraph there. “Only, like, three people have known me like you do—you know that, right?”    
  
He nods wordlessly, watching their hands. Ronan is tracing an obsessive line on the joint prominent from his thumb and he brings Adam’s hand up to his mouth to kiss his knuckles, looking off at some spot absently. It’s almost second nature for him to do this now, and Ronan isn’t exactly the most affectionate person. This is usually the only thing he’ll allow himself. “Right,” he says. “So.”    
  
Adam waits. And he’s rewarded because Ronan finally talks.    
  
“When me and Declan were younger, still friends, y’know,” Ronan starts, “We used to sleep in the same bed. We both had some recurring nightmare and it just helped or something, fucking forgot the specifics, but—one night, I was like five, I wake up and there’s a nail-studded bat in my hand.”    
  
Adam jumps a little, as if he can envision it. Ronan grins at him wolfishly, but his tongue drips sorrow from inside his mouth. “Yeah, I had the same reaction. I obviously had no fucking idea what had happened—think I accidentally saw a horror movie Mom and Dad were watching earlier and that was in it—and, being five, I scream and thrash it around and Declan’s sleeping next to me and you get it. He has scars on his forehead from it.”    
  
“Jesus,” Adam breathes, and his chest aches at the image of a tiny Ronan and his brother, screaming and bleeding and God knows what else you should only be doing when born or dying. “Fuck, Ro, you never told me.”    
  
“Because I don’t want you to look at me like that,” Ronan says fiercely, pulling away. He’s transformed a mile a minute back into—Ronan, who else? “Wipe that fucking look off your face, first off. I can control them now. I was five.”    
  
“That shouldn’t happen no matter how old you are,” Adam responds. “Is that why? You don’t want to hurt me?”    
  
He stays silent, stoic, answering Adam’s question for him. He draws a faint line down Ronan’s arm with his pointer, feeling goosebumps. He’s nothing Adam would have ever wished for and it’s so for the better, because Adam could never wish someone like him. “My God, Ronan, you just said it. You can’t hurt me. I know you wouldn’t. Other than punching me in the face sometimes but that’s always gonna happen.”    
  
“Stop being understanding,” Ronan says, sounding like he’s choked up, which doesn’t make sense, because Ronan Lynch doesn’t get choked up. “It’s pissing me off—you’ve got the looks and the brains and now you have the compassion?  I needed a thing. Now  _ I’m  _ the shitty boyfriend.”    
  
Oh. That’s a word. That’s definitely a word. Adam ignores the way his throat catches and rolls his eyes. “You can be, uh—I’d allow the hot one.”   
  
“This doesn’t change anything,” Ronan says firmly, ignoring him and cutting off his own smile. “I don’t want you touching me when I sleep.”    
  
Adam decides to ignore the obvious and say, “Anything I can do?”    
  
“Don’t know,” Ronan says miserably. “I’m just not good to sleep with, other than that. Loud-ass music.“    
  
“I like your music. Sometimes.”    
  
“Insomnia—“    
  
“Me too.”    
  
Ronan pushes forward. “It’s not about fucking dealbreakers, okay? It’s about—“ he visibly grapples for the right word, “—Trust.”    
  
Adam knows he doesn’t have a lot to spare of that. He’s practically in debt.    
  
“I haven’t properly slept in the same bed with someone after Declan since, like, Gansey. Once. And my dad, once or twice, obviously. And that’s—that’s me being a fuckup,” he says. “That’s me not knowing what the fuck to do after Declan shot me then took a shit on my chest and ruined all those good memories—don’t fucking touch me, I’m fine about it now—and I just—I don’t know.”    
  
“You don’t have to know,” Adam tells him, after a minute of silence. Ronan blinks rapidly at his lap, where he’s still holding Adam’s hand captive. “It’s okay. That’s all I needed. I’m not pitying you, by the way, I’d really never—I think you’re so fucking strong, Ronan, and you’re everything good in the world, can I kiss you now?”    
  
“Wh—yes—yeah.”   
  
So he does, and Ronan holds him in place when they turn away to gasp for air. “I get it,” Adam says to his anticipatory mouth. “All that shit combined makes it hard. So tell me when you’re good, okay?”    
  
“You’re so gross,” Ronan mumbles, then kisses him again. It’s four in the morning and Adam doesn’t mind what he minded before. “And hot. And annoying.”    
  
“What was that second thing?” Adam asks, but Ronan ignores him, flopping down on his back. He tears his earbuds and player away and shoves them on the bedside table, dragging Adam down with him. “Damn it. Fine. You’re so fucking convincing I don’t know what to do with myself—here.”    
  
He practically forces Adam’s hand around his hips, but Adam drops it to the side immediately. “What are you doing?”    
  
“I thought—that you didn’t trust me,” Ronan says. Soft. “That you’d think I couldn’t control myself. So I tried to help.”    
  
“Your version of me sounds like a fucking idiot.”    
  
“He is,” Ronan agrees. And then they settle back into something comfortable, so that he’s laid down facing Adam, hand tangled in his hair. He can’t stop touching Adam’s mouth. “Fuck, alright. I was missing out. This is weirdly calming.”    
  
Adam laughs against his fingers. “You’re so—“    
  
“I’m so?”    
  
He doesn’t know, so he says that. “I can only speak for myself. I’m just—really happy. And hot, and a dumbass, according to you.”    
  
“I’m two out of the three,” Ronan says. “Because I’m a fucking genius.”    
  
“I can live with you being happy.”    
  
He really can.    
  
——    
  
“Do you regret this now?” Ronan asks the next morning, when Adam’s hair is even more of a mess than usual (because Ronan pulls it in his sleep) and there’s a hickey on his collarbone (because Ronan was bored or something when they woke up) and they’re both pretty much dripping sweat, (because, obviously).

And it’s not so much sleeping together as it is the principle of the thing. They’re figuring shit out, and it seems to be working.    
  
“Nah.”    



End file.
